The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-02
Compiled for The ArkGnsdV TrGveIeT. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.


 (Hypnum culgdrt0 are the production of French manufacturer.
 The glare of the electric lights in the cZar's winter palace has proven very injurious to ornamental plants.
 The cause of grouse disease, which has been proven so destructive to British game, is to be investigated by Pasteur.
 The soil for house. plants should re- ceive attention, as medical men have found that malarial fever is propaga- ted among occupants of rooms con- taining pots of malarious earth.
 A new sword handle has been con- structed by Leipsic professor on, it is claimed, anatomical principles. The designer asserts that, being planned with reference to the hands mechan- ism, it can be held with absolute se- curity.
 The threatened extinction of edel- weiss and other Alpine flowers, short time ago, led to the founding of gardens and enclosures for the cultiva- tion and protection of these plants. At one of these mountain stations, at height of about 7,500 feet, plants of the Pyrenees, the Himalayas and the Caucasus are cultivated, as we'll as those of the Alps.
 An instance of the value of photo- graphy in detecting the relative motion of stars is given by NJ. de Gothard Comparison of a recent photograph with measures recorded by Vogel in 1S67-69 appears to show that cluster 4,411 G. c. contains an eleventh mag nitude star which has changed its po- sition relatively to the other stars to the extent of 2.3 seconds year.
 A NEW EFFECT.-Chemical decom- position has been produced by pres sure in the experiments of two Belgian chemists. Under pressure of 6,000 atmospheres, at temperature of 104 degrees, pulverized acetate of cop per and lime was slowly liquetied, and on removal of the pressure the surface of the instrument in contact with the salt was found coated with copper.
 IT ALWAYS PoURs.-The discovery of rare elements bids fair to bcome as persistent fanaticism among chemists as the finding of asteroids-whose number has been increased from 0 to nearly 270 during the present century -is among astronomers. During the decade ending with 1886 over forty discoveries of new elementary sub- stances were announced, while the entire number previously known was less than seventy. No less than nine were detected by Crookes last year. The list is likely to be heightened quite as materially in the current twelve months, as A. Pringle already claims to have found six new elements in some silurian rocks in Scotland. Five of these are said to be metals, and the other is substance resembling selen- ium, which the discoverer calls hes pea7Sium. One metal is like iron, but does not give some of it's reactions; another resembles lead, is quite fusi- ble and volatile, and forms yellow and green salts; another. named erebodium, is black; the fourth is light gray powder, and the last is dark in color.
 A CHAPTER FROM RELICs.-The pre- historic development of northern Flu rope is considered in work by the late J. J. Worsaal, an eminent Danish archaelogist, under the following phases, the approximate chronology as- signed being as stated: First. The carly Stone Age, at least 5000 B. C., when portions only of southern Scandinavia seem to have been inhabited. Second. The later Stone Age, about 2,0O0 to 1000 B. C., contemporaneous with the Bronze Age on the shores of the Med- iterranean. Third. The early Bronze Age, about 1,OO0 to 800 B. C., when Stone Age existed to the north, and an Iron Age had already come in to the south. Fourth. The late Bronze Age, about 300 B. c. to the time of Christ's birth, when pre- Roman Age of Iron was developed in central and western Europe. Fifth. The early Iron Age from A. D. to 450, when bronze was still in use in parts of the Scandina- vian peninsula. Sixth. The middle Age of Iron, about A. D. 450 to 700, when foreign Roman German influ- ence predominated. Seventh. The later Iron Age or Viking Period, about A. D. 700 to 1000, when Stone Age still fingered in the ex- treme north of Finland and Lapland
 MooRIsH MEDIcINE.-Progress in the treatment of disease is not every where the modern order, the Moors, whose medical practice is singular mixture of little real skill with an astonishing amount of ignorant super stition, seeming to be actually going backward. Says recent writer: ''The Moorish medicine man'-wc can hardly call him doctor-certainly dis plays some skill in couching for catar-